The art of the "how not to ..." (under pressure)

Me (on the phone): "You ARE an expert! You spend more time in a bar than anybody I've ever known."
Sweet Ann (from across the cubicle): "Tell Ed I said hi."

I'm a communicator. For a living, even. For a living and for a "hobby." (I put "hobby" in quotes because at this point, it's like a part-time job that I love and don't collect a paycheck.)

OK, so maybe I'm not the best at doing it with tact. I would just call that "my direct nature" and "brutal honesty."

Anyway, I spend 40-some hours a week getting paid at the ol' AutoTrader and then probably another 10 to 20 doing various Internet radio projects and blogging. Sometimes the blog gets hosed, though. It's not because the blog is any less important or I'm not interested in it, it's just something I know will always be there for me when I'm ready to come home. Kind of like a cat.

Like this one.

Inky. She's ill-tempered, but rather loyal.

But, I digress.

I generally do pride myself on having pretty good communication skills. I'd like to think I'm outgoing, expressive, thoughtful ... all of those things. But you know what I plain suck at? I mean, I'm so bad at it, I could host a seminar on "how not to ... ."

"Managing Emotions Under Pressure."

I was looking for a show topic for this week's Happy Hour (the NEW show we're doing at 2 p.m. on Sundays on TalkRadioX) and a brochure for a one-day seminar with that title fell right into my path.

To tie it all together -- first, a little bit about Happy Hour!

This is a new, exciting project for us. For a couple of months, I was a co-host on The James Madison Show on TalkRadioX and I got to know a little bit about the operation and its people. Because of some technical issues, I wasn't able to keep doing the JM Show, but they offered (because they're such great, awesome guys) to talk to the people at TRX to see if I could have a slot. Fortunately, the people who make those decisions caught me on an "A-Game" day, and offered up the slot.

After waffling for a while on a day and time, we all finally settled on 2 p.m. Sunday.

We settled on 2 p.m. Sunday at about 6 p.m. Saturday night.

This ... is where a seminar on "Managing Emotions Under Pressure" would have come in handy.

At this point, all I had was the graphic you see above, no audio promos cut, a rudimentary knowledge of HOW to use the audio software and a co-host I couldn't locate. It's 7:15 p.m. the night before launch.

And here, as they say, is where pressure kicks in.

Ordinarly, I'm very good at meeting deadlines under pressure. I do it every single week. It's part of my job. But as I sat there that Saturday night looking for various bits of audio to string together into a show opener with a program I only kind of know something about, I started to feel my head pound. My chest tightened a little. I was hot. And I was on the verge of panic. These were people I wanted to impress. I wanted the new show to be flawless. I wanted nothing less than perfection.

I finally put something together I somewhat liked. At this point, I couldn't really see straight, my head was throbbing and I felt a little sick in the pit of my belly knowing that in all of the work on production, none of it included ... a topic. I e-mailed the finished audio product to my co-host (who lives five and a half hours from Charleston in an awesome little party town we like to call Harrisburg, Pa.) and said, "Call me when you get this. I want to know what you think of it."

Shortly after midnight, I really could have used the knowledge that would have been gleaned from "Managing Emotions Under Pressure."

Me: Hi.
Nightman (sneaky and mean): Hey.
M: Did you listen?
N: Yeah. It's a little bit choppy.

... BOOM!!

What happened in the next few minutes could only be described as someone who did NOT "Manage Emotions Under Pressure." In a matter of sheer seconds, I became my father.

"Fine. You don't like it, I just e-mailed you the software. Have at it."

"You know, what the hell have YOU done to make this happen? Oh, wait. That's right. Nothing."

"Do you have any idea what it's like to spend four hours trying to put something like that together?"

I failed, clearly, to "Manage Emotions Under Pressure." Every time he said "calm down" I got angrier. When he tried to tell me that after listening to it a couple more times, he really liked it, I told him I didn't want to hear it. I stopped listening. I didn't let him talk. I started crying. I started attacking him for about everything I could think of.

I became everything I hate about people who can't handle pressure.

To his credit, he softened his tone and tried to get me to just walk away from it for the night and go to sleep. We're close enough to know those little quirks about each other -- I'm not very easy to deal with if I'm frustrated. Add fatigue and a migraine on top of it, and you're playing with a stick of C4 (that might be sparking) in one hand and a match in the other.

Is it right? No. Hell no it's not right. I had no reason to act that way. I was under pressure and rather than letting rational behavior win, I flipped out like a hormonal teenage girl.

Fortunately, when 2 p.m. Sunday hit, it didn't matter. The opening was nailed. The show was tight. We got lots of feedback and compliments and we ended it right on time (there's math involved!) even when I realized 20 seconds to cutoff that I hadn't wrapped up. (... oops.)

So, I managed under pressure. Maybe not my emotions, but I managed. And it's nothing that can't be completely forgotten and laughed about in a night spent watching sports at Zembie's or Wii bowling. And it opens the door to show topics by the dozen.